The dangers of dogma in medicine

Verran, Deborah J

doi:10.5694/mja11.11303

Topics

To The Editor: Bellomo quite rightly points out that medicine is now in an era when it is recognised that the amount of evidence being generated far surpasses most individual doctors’ ability to adequately deal with it.1 He suggests that “knowledge management may now be one of the major challenges of modern medicine”. However, is this a problem only needing to be confronted by those in medicine?

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence: verran@ausdoctors.net

Competing interests:

No relevant disclosures.

1. Bellomo R. The dangers of dogma in medicine. Med J Aust 2011; 195: 372-373. <MJA full text>
2. Grossman C, Goolsby WA, Olsen L, McGinnis JM. Engineering a learning healthcare system: a look at the future. Workshop summary. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12213 (accessed Oct 2011).
3. National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission. A healthier future for all Australians: final report June 2009. Chapter 5. Creating an agile and self improving health system. Canberra: Department of Health and Ageing, 2009. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/nhhrc-report (accessed Oct 2011).
4. Muir Gray JA. Evidence-based healthcare and public health. 3rd ed. United Kingdom: Churchill Livingstone, 2009.
5. Braithwaite J, Skinner CA, Doeng ML. A values-based health system. Med J Aust 2011; 194: 259-262. <MJA full text>

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